Cellulose-based materials such as cotton or cuprammonium rayon have superior moisture absorbability and water absorbability, and in the case of using as clothing, are extremely comfortable in the absence of perspiration or only a small amount of perspiration. However, when the amount of perspiration increases such as during the summer or when exercising, perspiration absorbed by the cellulose-based material ends up being retained in the fibers, thereby preventing dispersion of moisture, causing inferior quick drying and the material to continue to feel sticky, and resulting in a cold sensation being felt after perspiring.
Although a method for realizing both comfort and quick drying of cellulose-based materials in this manner provides a fabric allowing the obtaining of improved quick drying and resistance to moisture returning to the fabric as well as moisture absorbability by forming a knit fabric structure that prevents cellulose multifilaments from contacting the skin by arranging hydrophobic fibers in the form of polyester textured yarn in a layer that contacts the skin and cellulose multifilaments in an intermediate layer and surface layer in a knit fabric having two or more layer structures, since the cellulose-based fibers do not make any contact with the skin, the fabric has difficulty in rapidly absorbing dampness and perspiration appearing from the skin surface, resulting in the problem of difficulty in obtaining high cool touch sensation (see Patent Document 1 below).
In addition, although a knit fabric has been proposed that is resistant to stickiness and the cold sensation felt after perspiring while also reducing the feeling of dampness by defining the exposure percentage of cellulose-based continuous fiber on the side having projections contacting the skin surface to be a maximum of 15% and employing a knit fabric structure in which the minimum required number of cellulose fibers are allowed to contact the skin, this knit fabric has the problem of the maximum cellulose-based long fiber exposure percentage of about 15% being inadequate for obtaining cool touch sensation (see Patent Document 2 below).
On the other hand, although a woven knit fabric has been proposed that employs a structure in which rayon filaments having coarse single yarn fineness are arranged in the layer on the side of the skin while cotton is arranged in the surface layer in order to obtain cool touch sensation, this fabric has the problems of inadequate capillary phenomena due to the use of rayon filaments having coarse single yarn fineness, retention of absorbed moisture due to the use of a cellulose-based material for the material composing the knit fabric, and the feelings of stickiness and dampness after perspiring due to inferior quick drying. Moreover, there is also the problem of inadequate feel on the skin due to the use of rayon filaments having coarse single yarn fineness in the layer that contacts the skin (see Patent Document 3 below).